Neal Dawson

ENGL 1102

Rebecca Weaver

April 14, 2022

Metacognition is the recognition of one’s learning. It comprises comprehending the learning process’s goals, determining the optimal learning tactics, and determining if the learning objectives are being reached. A metacognitive student views themselves as a learning agent and recognizes that learning is an active, strategic endeavour. Better learning results have been related to Metacognition. Individuals who are strategic in their learning are more likely to succeed than those who do not reflect on the process of learning. Metacognitive students, for example, are more likely to detect when what they are studying does not make sense.

The Metacognitive Knowledge

The ability to reflect on one’s ideas and experiences is presumably unique to humans; animals cannot reflect on their lives, thoughts, or deeds. Furthermore, humans are the only animals that can plan for the future, reflect on their history and learn from mistakes, and, to a certain extent, predict what will happen to them (Rock 00:03:30 – 00:03:32). They can also picture what it might be like to be someone else, which allows them to experience compassion for others.

Metacognitive knowledge is information about oneself, about mental abilities that imply awareness about how well one performs particular sorts of tasks or about one’s competency levels, understanding that may be utilized to influence cognitive functions. Metacognitive information is used to track and control cognitive processes such as thinking, understanding, problem-solving skills, and learning. Knowledge of person variables refers to understanding human learning and knowledge of one’s learning process. For example, a student knows that group conversation will be more successful than self-study at home. Knowledge of task variables entails understanding the nature of the task and the types of computational requirements that it will impose on the participant.

Metacognitive regulation 

When people change their way of thinking, they engage in metacognitive regulation. It is a sequential method for controlling cognitive operations and ensuring the achievement of a cognitive objective. This dimension’s sub-dimensions include data management, scheduling, tracking, debugging, and evaluation. Metacognitive processes are characterized by the use of metacognitive methods or metacognitive control.

These processes aid in the regulation and supervision of learning, planning and monitoring of cognitive activities, and evaluating the consequences of these activities. For example, a student may question themselves if they understand the topic discussed to achieve the cognitive objective of comprehending the substance of a book. If the learner does not comprehend the subject, they may elect to reread it or split it into little units and answer the questions to grasp it better. As a result, the Metacognitive technique of self-questioning is employed to achieve the cognitive aim of studying and analyzing the material.

Metacognitive Skills

Metacognitive skills are comprised of two fundamental processes that occur concurrently: evaluating the progress of acquisition in the learning process and making modifications and adjusting techniques for improved learning. Metacognitive skills involve conscious control of learning, strategy planning and selection, monitoring students’ progress, error correction, assessing the awareness of learning methods, and altering learning behaviours and approaches as needed.

Developmental process in Metacognition

Metacognitive skills arise between the ages of three and ten, and they continue to grow throughout the years. Certain metacognitive skills, such as monitoring and assessment, appear to be more developed than others, such as planning (Lysaker et al.). Metacognitive skills and abilities develop at a basic level throughout pre-school but become more complex and intellectually focused when formal schooling involves the explicit use of a metacognitive repertoire.

To some extent, most kids gain metacognitive information and competence from their parents, classmates, and instructors, with significant diversity in their metacognitive adequacy (Lysaker et al.). However, a sizable population cannot spontaneously acquire this talent due to unfavourable conditions and an unwillingness to develop this metacognitive repertoire. Metacognitive teaching appears to improve Metacognition and learn in a wide spectrum of pupils.

Being a self-regulated learner recognizes that the capacity to acquire a skill evolves with time rather than being a fixed attribute. Students must manage their time in the learning activity, spend more time on main objective searches, and regularly remind themselves of their aim to be self-regulated learners (O’Leary et al. ). Students should be provided with the opportunity to exercise self-monitoring and adaptation to set realistic goals and improve their performance.

In the educational setting, next-generation instructors encounter a variety of obstacles. Teacher education curricula must be updated with new methodologies to meet classroom instruction issues. Metacognitive understanding assists teacher candidates in boosting pupils’ cognitive skills (Bressman et al.). As a result, emphasis should be placed on developing and accelerating cognitive capabilities among students and teachers to improve data management, promote awareness of how to organize and supervise the activities toward achieving objectives, understand possible errors in classroom instruction, and assess student achievement.

Improving Metacognition

Encourage reflexive thinking. Reflexivity is the metacognitive process of being aware of our biases, which impede healthy development. Teachers may foster a culture of deeper learning and reflexivity in their classrooms by fostering conversation that challenges human and social prejudices (David 39). Students learn to “think about their own thinking” when they debate or write articles concerning prejudices and moral difficulties in politics, money, discrimination, poverty, fairness, and freedom. They learn to question their prejudices and become more adaptable and flexible thinkers.

Allow learners to practice identifying what they don’t understand. Being perplexed and recognizing one’s lack of comprehension is a key aspect of gaining self-awareness (David 36). Take time at the end of a difficult lesson to ask, “What was most perplexing about the content we studied today?” This kick starts metacognitive processing and fosters a classroom atmosphere that accepts perplexity as an essential learning component.

In conclusion, Self-awareness is important for increased learning since it helps pupils become more effective at focusing on what they still need to learn. With age, one’s ability to think about one’s thoughts improves (Chew 00:03:59 – 00:04:15). When teachers nurture students’ skills to reflect on, monitor and analyze their learning processes, students become more self-reliant, adaptable, and effective. Students enhance their ability to analyze options and evaluate alternatives, especially when answers are not evident. When students struggle to comprehend, they use reflective skills to identify and correct their errors. Enhancing metacognitive methods relating to students’ schooling also offers young people tools to think about and improve their emotional and social lives.

Works Cited

Bressman, Sherri, Jeffrey S. Winter, and Sara Efrat Efron. “Next-generation mentoring: Supporting teachers beyond induction.” Teaching and teacher education 73 (2018): 162-170.

Chew, Steven. How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 1 of 5, “Beliefs That Make You Fail… Or Succeed” [Video]. Samford University (2011).

David, Bindu. “THE DEVELOPMENT OF METACOGNITION IN PRACTICE.” EDUCATIONAL EXTRACTS (2021): 35.

Lysaker, Paul H., et al. “Metacognition and recovery in schizophrenia: from research to the development of metacognitive reflection and insight therapy.” Journal of Experimental Psychopathology 10.1 (2019): 2043808718814992.

O’Leary, Allison P., and Vladimir M. Sloutsky. “Components of metacognition can function independently across development.” Developmental psychology 55.2 (2019): 315.

Rock Kane, Pearl, and Kevin Mattingly. Metacognition: Effective Teaching Strategies. 2018.

Angel Sabino

Engl-1102

Professor: Rebecca Weaver

April 13, 2022

There are a great number of practices that students can do to get over a bad grade. The evidence provided in this project is to help students overcome a bad grade on an assignment. Much of the evidence is supported by professionals in the field of education, books about bad practices students can have, and a survey that was given to college students. The amount of students that let themselves get put down by a grade increases, and the number of unprepared students for this situation is hurtful to the education field. A student’s standpoint on what is believed to be a good or bad grade is important in order to overcome a bad grade, as well as what methods to overcome an assignment, also demonstrating an understanding of the assignment is crucial. 

In the article “ Schools Are Facing a surge of failing Grades During the Pandemic — and Traditional Approaches Like Credit Recovery Will Not Be Enough to Manage It” Betheny Goss claims that “ In New Mexico, more than 40 percent of middle and high school students were failing at least one class as of late October” ( Bethany par. 2). This data taken in 2021 underline the clear amount of student unprepared for classes. Bethany also states that “Nearly 40 percent of grades for high school students in St. Paul, Minnesota were Fs,” and how this number has doubled in the recent school year( Betheny par. 2). The amount of failing students goes way beyond a state. Betheny also states that “ In Fairfax County, Virginia, the biggest drop in grades came for students whose primary language is not English: 47 percent are underperforming in math, 53 percent in English.” (Betheny par. 11). The first step in overcoming a bad grade is understanding what a good grade is to a student.

 Most often students do not know where to start when receiving a bad grade. One of the best places to start is understanding what a good grade looks like. The article “College students’ categorical perceptions of grades: it’s simply ‘good’ vs. ‘bad,” was written by Boatright-Horowitz and Chris Arrudaon. Is a survey that was taken by 561 undergraduate college students(Boatright and Chris sec. participants), and its aim was to show what a good “numeric grade, alphabetic grades, numeric non-grades, and alphabetic non-grades” is to a college student. Boatright and Chris want students to understand what a good grade means, this is proven to be true by the statement that“ratings for letter grades were significantly lower than those for non-grade letters for most low grades,”(Chris and Boatright sec. Ratings of grades) and “ratings for numeric grades were significantly greater than non-grade numbers for high grades” (Chris and Boatright sec. Ratings of grades.) The section on Rating of Grades suggests that students prefer a higher grade. Boatright and Chris also suggest that students categorize grades in two tears, which is either good or bad grade. Understanding what is considered a good grade is the first step in overcoming a bad grade. It helps students understand what they did to recvice that grade. 

When the student has understood the reason for receiving a bad grade. They can ask for feedback, but the feedback should be constructive. Zenobia Chan states in “Good and bad practices in rubrics: the perspectives of students and educators.” that a constudtive feedback has “ several levels of quality is a more visible approach for students  “ ( Chan sect. Implications par. 2). This quality of feedback is very benifical to the students becasuse it allows them too  “achieve a desirable level of performance and establish learning goals” (Chan sect. introduction). With this feedback and startagies student can overcome a bad grade. Kathleen talks about developing skills and awareness as a student in college. Kathleen states that the method “ Supplementary Materials, “  is a very practical method because it “can be assigned for working on out of class and therefore do not take class time away from content” (Kathleen page 57). All this is beneficial to the student but it would not work if the student does not understand their learning style. 

In the book Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education the author Kathleen states that for a student to successfully get the grade they desire, the student must figure out their learning style. Learning styles can be categorized in four ways, “active or reflective,  sensing or intuitive, visual or verbal, and sequential or global.”Kathleen states that active learning works “by trying things out and working with others [but ]reflective learners learn by thinking things through, and working alone”( Kathleen page 60).  Kathleen also states that Intuitive learners want information that is conceptual, innovative, and oriented toward theo-ries and meanings(Kathleen page 61). While “Sensing learners prefer information that is concrete, practical, and ori-ented toward facts and procedures” (Kathleen page 61). Visual learners remember best from pictures, diagrams, flowcharts, timelines, films, and demonstrations. While Verbal learners are the opposite and prefer written and spoken explanations. Sequential learners are linear, orderly, and learn in small incremental steps. Whereas “global learners are holistic, systems thinkers and learn in large leaps.” By understanding what the students’ learning style is they can get closer to success. 

The large amount of students failing classes or assignments in recent years has increased. To decrease this large increase, students can use strategies to help them receive a better grades. What is a good grade also matters and it is important for them to understand that. All this is useless if the student does not know what their learning style is. Overall there are options for decreasing the students failing classes or assignments.

Work sited: 

Acadicllu journal:

Boatright-Horowitz, SuL. College students’ categorical perceptions of grades: it’s simply ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’.“ Wiley Blackwell, Medical Education (MED EDUC), Mar2015; 49(3): 307-320. (14p). CINAHL, 10.1111/medu.12659.

Chan, Zenobia. “Good and bad practices in rubrics: the perspectives of students and educators.” Taylor & Francies, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Jun2019, Vol. 44 Issue 4, p533-545. 13p.Sociological Collection, 10.1080/02602938.2018.1522528.

Ebook:

Gabriel, Kathleen F.  “Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education.” Bloomfield: Stylus Publishing. 2017. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), 9781579222307. 9781579222291. 9781579229412. 9781620367957.

Popular website: 

Betheny Gross. “Schools Are Facing a surge of failing Grades During the Pandemic — and Traditional Approaches Like Credit Recovery Will Not Be Enough to Manage It” The74million. www.the74million.org/article/analysis-schools-are-facing-a-surge-of-failing-grades-during-the-pandemic-and-traditional-approaches-like-credit-recovery-will-not-be-enough-to-manage-it/. 

Abass Salat
Engl 1102 + Section 312 – Weaver
Major Project 4
Date Due: Apr 25
asalat2@student.gsu.edu

How College Students Should Approach a New Project

            Getting assigned a major project in college can feel very overwhelming. The increased difficulty of projects in the transition from highschool to higher education makes college students feel like they can never get it done. What can really get rid of this anxiety of college level projects and boost productivity is for students to approach projects like this strategically. Thinking ahead is critical to the completion and quality of this sort of project. Students should approach the project by opening up time in their schedule, breaking the project into smaller tasks, effectively combating against burnout, and having a support system.

            At the start of the project, students need to plan how they are going to get it done. Students should identify exactly what time they have available and allocate time to the project. They should also identify at what location they will work on the project. According to the study done by Sean Humpherys and Ibrahim Lazrig in the article “Effects of Teaching and Practice of Time Management Skills on Academic Performance in Computer Information Systems Courses” in the journal Information Systems Education Journal, when students identify the how, when, and where of a plan, they are considerably more productive in executing it (Humpherys and Lazrig). The authors mention this planning benefits students in many ways. They say doing this will lessen the chance of distraction killing the student’s working hours which helps against procrastination. Additionally, Humpherys and Lazrig say that when students preplan the how, when, and where of their plan, their grading results for their goal is likely to be positive. Also, students should make the plan as specific as possible according to Alain Samson, an economist with an expertise and PhD in social psychology, in his article “10 Ways to Get a Big Project Done” (Samson). What Dr. Samson means is instead of a student planning they will complete a specific task the project calls for on Monday, they should plan that they will complete that task on Monday from 10 a.m. to noon in a specific spot at the library. This will lessen the chance of a student having the intention to complete the task throughout the day but not being able to do it because they didn’t allocate a specific time of day for it, or a distraction came up.

            When given a project, students are never expected to get it all done in one day. College level projects are simply too complex. What students should do is approach it strategically and break down the project into pieces. Doing this has many benefits and will facilitate the process. According to Dr. Samson, breaking projects into smaller pieces will lay out the specific things one would need to get done (Samson). Dr. Samson adds that the person will also be able to analyze the difficultly levels of each piece of the project which is an advantage. This is because now the student has smaller workloads to complete rather than trying to tackle the project as a whole. Additionally, now the student can avoid unproductively pausing progress on the project due to a freighting challenge up ahead. Dr. Samson says ending a work session because of a demanding piece of the project up ahead is the opposite of what one should do when working on a project. This is because the student might avoid the next work session because of such a demanding piece of the project waiting for them as soon as they get started. Students should start with the less demanding pieces of the project and end with the slightly more demanding ones. This will help the students against unproductively pausing and will give them the fulfilling feeling of ending a session with hard work.

            Although some pauses on projects are unproductive, there are pauses that are highly encouraged if not necessary. When a student is feeling overwhelmed or just feels stuck, its best for them to take a break. According to Dr. Samson, students in this situation should do a completely different activity from what their project is about (Samson). For example, if a student’s project is about the French Revolution, they should go for a walk or knit a hat. Students can highly benefit from this because when they return to working on the project, they get rid of all their brain fog and their ability to work at their best is not compromised. This will help students avoid burning out and will help them get satisfactory results on the assignment.

            Also, when students are so deep in the project and they deprived themselves of taking breaks, they can’t notice the mistakes that they make. According to Jennifer Oliver, a writer, a speaker, and a creative project consultant, taking a break from working on a project can help students detect the faults in their work (Oliver). She says that sometimes someone is so deep into their project that they do not see the things they are doing wrong. Oliver says that when a student is in this situation, they should take some distance away from the project. Stepping away from working on the project might take away from a student’s work time but it will boost productivity in the long run.

            A student being overworked on a project is not the only thing that can lead to burnout. Lack of encouragement can be a major drag on a student’s ability to complete a project. Also, students are susceptible to procrastinating on doing what they planned to complete. The way students can combat both of these issues is by involving someone or multiple people to act as a support system. According to Philip Oreopoulos, Richard W. Patterson, Uros Petronijevic, and Nolan G. Pope in their article “Low-Touch Attempts to Improve Time Management among Traditional and Online College Students” in the journal Journal of Human Resources, having a system like this in place has been shown to help students achieve the goals they set out (Oreopoulos et. al.). The authors say that the support group should act as reminders for the student. This is because having a person or group of people that care about the student reminding him or her to not fall short of their goals reinforces the student’s commitment. Also, the students should share their progress on the project with their support system. According to Dr. Samson, just sharing their progress can help them achieve their final goal (Samson). He says that a student might also benefit from the positive reaction of their support group.

            Approaching a new project strategically is the best way for students to approach completing it. Instead of students simply starting the project and hoping all goes well, they should think things through. Students just jumping right in can lead to negative results due to lack of planning. The common occurrences like students saying they did not have enough time when they did, or the project was so mentally draining they just gave up are born from lack of planning. Applying these techniques can lead to satisfying results for students and are highly recommended to implement next time a student has a major project.

Work Cited

Humpherys, Sean L., and Ibrahim Lazrig. “Effects of Teaching and Practice of Time Management Skills              on Academic Performance in Computer Information Systems Courses.” Information Systems                      Education Journal, Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals. Box 488,                         Wrightsville Beach, NC 28480. e-Mail: Publisher@Isedj.org; Web Site: Http://Isedj.org, 31 Mar.               2021, eric.ed.gov/?q=time%2Bmanagement&id=EJ1297703.

Oliver, Jen. “5 Reasons to Take a Break from Creative Projects.” J Oliver Designs, 16 June 2020,                     www.joliverdesigns.co.uk/5-reasons-to-take-a-break-from-creative-projects/.

Oreopoulos, Philip, et al. “Low-Touch Attempts to Improve Time Management among Traditional and                Online College Students.” Journal of Human Resources, vol. 57, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1–43.,                                 doi:10.3368/jhr.57.1.0919-10426r1.

Samson, Alain. “10 Ways to Get a Big Project Done.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 23 June                     2021, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/consumed/202106/10-ways-get-big-project-done.

Introduction

One of the main concerns many middle and lower class people have in the US while growing up is how they will be able to afford college. There are countries around the world that offer public college and universities that are free for everybody. K-12 education in the US is free, and we have seen politicians talk about free-tuition college bills multiple times, so why does the US government not offer free higher education yet? In this paper, we discuss the reasons why free-tuition may or may not be possible.

Discussion

In the article “The Politics of Designing Tuition-Free College: How Socially Constructed Target Populations Influence Policy Support” in Journal of Higher Education, Elizabeth Bell states that over 70 percent of parents express concern about how to finance their child’s college education (888). The idea of free higher education is not a new concept for Americans. In 2015, President Obama captured headlines in the US by announcing America’s College Promise (ACP), a policy that would reverse four decades of privatisation in higher education by making community colleges ‘tuition-free (from “Americans ‘Support’ the Idea of Tuition-Free College: An Exploration of Sentiment and Political Identity Signals Otherwise” in Journal of Further & Higher Education, by Daniel Collier, pp. 347). But what about the people who want to get a degree from a place better than a community college? Over 16 states have implemented some form of tuition-free college policy (Bell, 888). Nevertheless, some states have not succeeded in this. Oregon, for example, faced considerable difficulty in establishing political feasibility and sustainability (Bell, 888).

In the article “Aiming Higher: Make College Tuition Free” by Jon Wiener, he says that college used to be free at state schools before and gives the example of the University of California. In 2014, in-state tuition and fees for undergraduates totaled $13,222 for one year and as a result, two-thirds of college seniors now graduate with an average of $29,000 in student-loan debt (Wiener, 224). The problem is that this pushes students into decades of debt (Wiener, 224), which most of the time, prevents them from moving higher up in their career and economically until their loan debt is paid off.

Michael Horn, Senior Contributor at Forbes, wrote the article “Five Reasons Why Free College Doesn’t Make The Grade,” and he claims that by making college free, it complicates students’ ability to make the right choices for themselves because it privileges these traditional higher education experiences over new private options that are designed to be faster, cheaper, and optimized for student success (Horn). He also states that although financial struggles are one of the main reasons for student dropouts, there are other factors that contribute to it, such as professional commitments, health, lack of satisfaction with one’s school, and academics (Horn). Therefore, he tries to explain that even if higher education was 100% free, there would not be a big difference in the rate of students who drop out of college. He also adds that if all colleges were free, an immense amount of debt would be added to future generations of taxpayers (Horn).

There are several pros and cons on whether public higher education should be free in the US, and it is because of this that the US government has not been able to reach an agreement whenever this subject is discussed. The opinions on this are divided between the people who think free-tuition would be a great idea, and the people who think it will hurt the economy. What Michael Horn stated in his article is true, financial struggles are not the only reason college students drop out of school. Nevertheless, Jon Wiener makes a point in saying that “education is a public good” (224). He stated “the purpose of education is not just to enable people to increase their lifetime incomes; it’s to help them understand the world, to stimulate the imagination and inspire creativity in all fields. A good society provides opportunities for everyone. We need educated people. And we should be willing to pay to educate them (224).

Conclusion

Free-tuition can be possible in the US, but because the government is divided between people who have different opinions on this subject, an agreement has not been reached. If the government were able to prioritize this and come up with ideas to counterattack the disadvantages that this would bring, the overall outcome would be positive. Future generations would consist of highly educated people, who therefore would cause a drastic change in society.

Works cited

Bell, Elizabeth. “The Politics of Designing Tuition-Free College: How Socially Constructed Target Populations Influence Policy Support.” Journal of Higher Education, vol. 91, no. 6, Sept. 2020, pp. 888–926. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2019.1706015.

Collier, Daniel A., et al. “Americans ‘Support’ the Idea of Tuition-Free College: An Exploration of Sentiment and Political Identity Signals Otherwise.” Journal of Further & Higher Education, vol. 43, no. 3, Apr. 2019, pp. 347–62. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2017.1361516.

Horn, Michael. “Five Reasons Why Free College Doesn’t Make The Grade.” Forbes, 17 July 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2019/07/16/five-reasons-why-free-college-doesnt-make-the-grade/?sh=5839172da6c1.

Wiener, Jon. “Aiming Higher: Make College Tuition Free.” Nation, vol. 300, no. 14, Apr. 2015, pp. 224–26. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=a9h&AN=101720701&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

 -Christopher Catbagan (Unsplash) Depressed Student

Chloe Richey  

April 16, 2022 

English Composition 1152  

Professor Weaver  

Academic Pressure affecting College Students Mental Health 

Introduction: 

The history of academic pressure started in the 17th century when grading systems were developed. As the schools started to develop more, requirements to be successful in life like having A’s started to pressure the students. Effects from academic pressure started to be visible in college scholars. Some adults started to pay close attention to their students and decided to make different options to reach out to the students like creating videos. Relating to Dr. Chew’s video, “I Blew the Exam, Now What?” (Dr. Chews) he distinguishes do’s and don’ts to help students whose mental health is in the state of giving up and not wanting to continue. The importance of understanding academics affecting higher ed students is that the grading system is the “quiet” cause of academic pressure, pressure from grades influences the daily life of college students, and the social support helps decrease academic stress from hurting scholars’ mental state of mind.  

Discussion:  

Grades themselves are not the main cause of the bad mental health of college students, grading systems are the main factor discouraging college students today. A grading system is the evaluation of a student’s performance on daily activities or exams. The first-ever college grading system was invented in 1785 by Yale University. During the 1780s, grades were not viewed as competition and a fair system for other students, but later in the years that all changed. When letter grades A-F were introduced in the 1940s, women, and men were competing to meet the “perfect” spot leading students to have academic pressure. According to J Randall, & Engelhard, “Taking the Stress out of Grading”, he states “Over half of our grading scale is an F, and if we assume a C grade signifies minimum attainment of course standards, then over two-thirds of our grading scale describes the insufficient performance, and only one-fifth of the scale describes academic success (A or B)” (Randall and Engelhard, 2). The indication of his article, there is so much weight on a letter grade of F and the view of a C being the bare minimum, it causes students to feel more challenged to not receive anything below A and B. This unbalance weight of the grading system would cause a higher chance of students failing more than passing.  

An example Randall and Engelhard used was “A single missed assignment caused a 22 percent decrease and a two-grade-level drop”, (Randall and Engelhard, 2). If a student started to have a grade of 95, which is an A and misses one assignment it would now cause them to have a C. This imbalance puts more pressure on students and makes it harder for that type of student to go back to an A. The message from this has students’ mental health is a part of anxiety and “seek security with learning as the casualty,” stated Mark Espinola’s article “History of College Grading System,” (Espinola, 1). Because of being cautious of the grading system, college students who continue to work in their major start to look for teachers who do not give a hard A. According to Espinola “History of College Grading System,” he states “Ideally, students searching through Rate My Professor would be looking for signals of good teaching, but many of the student comments focus on the course grading scale.” (Espinola, 1). This means that higher ed scholars focus more on the easiness of the grading scale in the next class they take. College scholars’ mental health starts to develop in way of finding an easier way out and develop persistent changes in mental health and life.  

College students’ mental health has its response to academics. One of them is ending their own life, which is suicide. In the article “Grades Are at the Center of the Student Mental Health Crisis” the author Joshua Eyler, states “Rates of anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideation have spiked dramatically, and academic stress tied to grades is a leading cause of this escalation” (Eyler, 1). He suggests that stress from grades is the cause of bad mental health effects like suicide and depression. Academic stress does not only influence students’ mental health but also forces universities and college staff to be more involved in their student life. Campus leaders from Worcester Polytechnic Institute guided students who were in need. Academic stress on students also impacted WPI to introduce programs that helped students to give their own teachers advice on revising their grading scale.  

Additionally, some frequent situations that have occurred with students who experience soaring academic stress that links to depression are “procrastination, falling behind in classes and withdrawing socially” as stated by Hayley Kraft “Mental Health and Academic Success in College” (Kraft, 1). Kraft indicates that academic stress can create different consequences for a college scholar. With the non-treatment of anxiety, college students could find it hard to focus on test-taking and remembering important things. This could lead to poor grades in school. Because of academic stress, college scholars’ crisis of mental health has increased drastically.  

College students need the availability of programs for coping with academic stress around them and people need to listen to them. With this, adults could help them feel that grades do not define who they are as a person. In the article “Coping with Academic Stress: Ambiguity and uncertainty tolerance in college students” Journal of American College Health, Urvi Paralkar and Douglas Knutson suggests that “One explanation for this positive relationship could be that when people experience negative emotions, they are more likely to seek out for social support to deal with the discomfort”, (Paralkar and Knutson, 1). Paralkar and Knutson indicate that college students who experience heavy academic stress would need help from social support. An example would be a student who failed a test would probably feel like giving up, but in their mind, they try to seek out help. Social support comes with having friends or family to talk to or even looking up videos to help you move on from it like Dr. Chew’s videos.  

Dr. Stephen L. Chew is a professor in psychology that creates videos that help scholars who are feeling the pressure from academic stress to assist students not to give up. One video he created was “How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 5 of 5, I Blew the Exam, Now What?”, and Dr. Chew goes on to deep details about students that failed an exam and steps to move on from there. He connects academic stress formally tests stress to college scholars on what not to do and what to do. This could be a type of social support that students may need or watch to help them feel that it’s ok to experience failure.  

In addition, in the article, “Resilience amid Academic Stress: The Moderating Impact of Social Support among Social Work Students”, Advance In Social Work (2008),  Hubbard, P., Muhlenkamp, A. F., & Brown, N and Martinelli suggest that “Student perceptions of social support have also been positively associated with health-promoting behaviors such as exercise, good nutrition, and avoidance of substance abuse”  (Hubbard and Brown, 109) indicating with social support from communities or even families have brought positive reactions to academic stress from college scholars. Some of those reactions are being able to handle stress, staying away from substance abuse, and having more self-esteem within the college scholars. Social support has a positive relationship with students’ mental health and that’s why the community should listen to help their mental health.  

Conclusions  

In conclusion, college scholars’ mental health is in a negative relationship with academic stress, mainly grades. Grades seem to have a toll on students that cause them to make them feel that anything less than an A is a failure or not good enough. The imbalanced grading system is the main reason for grades dictating students’ minds. The scholars have different ways of responding to the discouraging grades they receive leading to their deaths. There are ways we, the community, can stop letting this happen, which is having social support available. Some ways to be part of social support are help volunteering or being part of a fitness group College scholars’ mental health and academic stress need to be addressed and stopped. 

Citations  

Chew, Stephen L. “How to Get the Most out of Studying: Part 5 of 5 … – Youtube.” Youtube, Sanford University, 16 Aug. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QVRiMkdRsU. 

Randall, J., & Engelhard, G. (2010). Examining the grading practices of teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(7), 1372–1380. https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/taking-the-stress-out-of-grading 

Espinola, Mark. “History of the College Grading Scale.” GradeHub, 19 June 2018, https://gradehub.com/blog/college-grading-scale/. 

Eyler, Joshua. “Grades Are at the Center of the Student Mental Health Crisis: Inside Higher Ed.” Just Visiting, 7 Mar. 2022, http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/grades-are-center-student-mental-health-crisis. 

Kraft, Hayley. “Mental Health and Academic Success in College.” BetterYou, www.betteryou.ai/mental-health-and-academic-success-in-college/. 

Paralkar U, Knutson D. Coping with academic stress: Ambiguity and uncertainty tolerance in college students. J Am Coll Health. 2021 Sep 8:1-9. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2021.1965148. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34494940.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07448481.2021.1965148 

Hubbard, P., Muhlenkamp, A. F., & Brown, N. (1984). The relationship between social support and self-care practices. Nursing Research, 33, 266-270. https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/advancesinsocialwork/article/view/51/195 

Martinelli, A. M. (1999). An explanatory model of variables influencing health promotion behaviors in smoking and nonsmoking college students. Public Health Nursing, 16(4), 263-269. https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/advanc